


Irreconcilable Differences

by Ayabelle (lea_hazel)



Category: Collar of the Damned, Original Work
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, Imprisonment, Love/Hate, Not porn, Political discourse as foreplay, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/Ayabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morally questionable political decisions segue neatly into equally questionable sexual decisions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irreconcilable Differences

**Author's Note:**

> Created in an attempt to fill the [Dark OTP meme](http://actualodinson.tumblr.com/post/64547472272/30-day-dark-fandom-otp-writing-challenge) from Tumblr and the GPB square "Tension".

It was spring. Somewhere far above the ceiling a warm wind was blowing and old dark leaves gave way to newer, brighter green growth. Perhaps it was early morning, when the sun was bright but not yet warm, still holding a nip of winter cold.

A muffled sound drew his attention. Someone was coming. He counted his heartbeats silently until he could see a sliver of light under the door. When the door swung open a dark figure was silhouetted against the flickering yellow lamplight.

“Give me the lamp.”

Oh. _Her_.

The warm light spilled over the cell's bare stone floor. A guard closed the door behind her and he could hear a key rattling in the lock.

He raised his hands, echoing the sound with his chains. “You're not afraid I'll try to kill you again?”

“I suppose you could,” she said, regarding him thoughtfully. “Try, that is.”

“I suppose,” he said, “you have a point. Unless my men come to break me out, this rebellion is nipped in the bud.”

“You think you failed to inspire their loyalty?” she asked.

Braugan laughed an abrupt and acrid laugh. “If Jay were here, he would have fired their spirits.”

“If Jaylen were here,” said Aya, “he would be king.”

He watched her fidget with the lamp, trying to attach it to a worn sconce near the door. Since last they met she had exchanged her cracked and worn leathers for a white linen stola. A blue scarf was wrapped around her hair and draped down her neck.

“Aya, why are you here? And why are you wearing that _thing_? You can't still pretend that I don't know what is underneath.”

She tensed when he used her old name. “When did you find out?”

Braugan shrugged. “Does it matter? This was never about the collar, you know.”

“Do I?” asked Aya, raising an eyebrow. “The placards your people posted suggest otherwise.”

He laughed again. “As if we didn't use the same propaganda only months ago.”

Unwinding her veil with one hand, she walked across the cell with distinctly measured steps. Her movements were crisply decisive and she knelt on the stone floor before him, a gesture which brought her down to his eye-level. Proximity shattered her facade of aristocracy and he knew her by the cool deliberation of her actions for the girl he had known. Once she had joined him to sail down the river on a mission to dispatch an unlawful tyrant.

Now her hair fell down about her face and neck and her eyes were lined carefully with kohl, but she still must be in some way that girl. A spark of brightness caught his eye; the lantern had thrown a bit of light which played over the dark, shining ring around her neck. Braugan found that he had clenched his jaw without realizing it. He turned his head although there was nothing on either side of her worth looking at; the cell was bare. In the moments it took him to wind through this thought trail, her veil had slipped from her fingers and onto his shackled hands.

The blue silk was soft between his fingers, snagging on the blunt tips. He dropped it and reached up with one hand, the other drawn to follow by the manacles which connected them.

Aya sprang at him, closing her hand over his clenched fist. Firmly, she pushed his hands back towards his chest and snatched the scrap he was holding. She wound it around her throat, pushing her hair out of the way. He watched the quick movements of her hands as the sheen of abalone vanished under wound silk.

“I understand your injuries are fully recovered,” she said.

“Unlock these,” he said, thrusting the manacles conspicuously between their faces, “and we'll see how recovered I am.”

“You're angry,” she said.

“You have me in chains, Aya,” he said, rattling to emphasize his point. “ _Yes_ , I'm angry.”

“Surely you did not expect me to sit back and let you kill me,” said Aya. “You had a sword to my neck. I jailed you to protect myself.”

He hated her voice when she spoke like that, all reason and deliberation, so certain of her point. Aya never did take anyone else's opinion to bear if she could help it. ' _Surely you do not expect, Braugan. Surely what I say is best._ ' She used that voice when she put the knife into his hands that he used to slit the guard's throat, the first time they infiltrated the Dawn Palace. She surely made the decision, but he was the one who had to make the cut that bleeds.

“When is my execution?” he asked dully. He was past caring.

She looked back at him, sudden and startled. “I'm not going to execute you, Braugan,” she said. “I don't want you to die.”

Braugan stared at her open face and wide eyes and found himself ill with disgust. He reached up again, quicker than before, and threw his chained hands over her head, wrapping his arms around her back.

Aya barely blinked. “Are you willing to die to take me with you?” she asked. “You know there is a guard outside the door.”

“I want answers,” he said.

She shifted beneath his arms, pulling herself up straight as much as her constrained position would allow. Her eyes locked on his. “I don't want to kill you,” she said, “and I don't want to die.”

“That is– You cannot–“ the words squirmed out of his mouth, half-formed and senseless.

He pulled on his manacles, a nervous gesture, tipping her off her balance. She teetered and reached out to brace herself by impulse, though there was nothing for her to hold onto. Her hand pressed flat against him. By impulse he pulled on her again, drawing her nearer. He could feel her breath on him. She reached up with her other hand and touched his face.

“I don't want to die, Braugan,” she said. “If I unlocked your chains you would kill me, or die trying. I don't want things to end that way for either of us.”

“And your solution,” said Braugan, “is this. Chains and a dungeon cell. Will you keep me here indefinitely?”

She hesitated and her eyes flicked sideways.

No fast answer? Maybe she didn't know herself. What a piecemeal solution, nothing like her usual immaculately detailed plans. She was improvising, he realized. He was a threat for which she had no contingency. Braugan hissed a sigh and dragged again on the manacles to unbalance her. He pressed his hands against her back, imagining that he could feel her skin under the white linen, until her torso rested warmly next to his.

Aya rested her forehead against his shoulder and her voice was muffled when she spoke. “I don't know what it is that you want from me and think I can give you.”

With her face tilted away, her neck was laid before him -- or would be if it wasn't swaddled in silk. He dragged his fingertips down her back and felt a certain triumph when she shivered. She repaid him by kissing his neck open-mouthed. His breath hitched. Caught in the tangled position he had trapped them both in, there was only so much he could do with his hands so restricted.

“Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” he asked.

“Do you truly think everything would be simple if you were in my position?” she asked in counter, softly in his ear like a dreadful secret.

“Some things are,” he said. “Simple.”

She pushed against his chest to right herself as much as she could, leaned forward to kiss him lightly. He clutched at her back, grabbing fistfuls of linen to pull her in. Shaking her head, she turned her face away from him.

“You can let go now.”

Braugan only hugged her tighter, pressing his mouth to the tender skin between her throat and her ear. He worked his tongue over her and imagined that her hot breath on his skin was her panting, not a sigh of exasperation barely held back. She kept hold of his arm with her left hand while the right combed softly through his hair.

“Braugan.” Her fist tightened suddenly and painfully, pulling at his scalp. “Release me.”

Reluctantly he let go of the back of her dress and she pulled his conjoined arms up and over her head. His hands skimmed over her hair before she dropped them before him, the weight of the steel dragging them down. Bracing against his chest she stood up, then bent over to kiss his forehead.

“I will come visit you again,” she said, “soon.”

With that she turned on her heel and walked out, leaving her lantern hanging on his wall to slowly gutter out.  


End file.
